In proprietor Roberto Spada’s office,a desk by Osvaldo Borsani.The sculpture on the right is one of twopieces comprising the fibreglass work‘La Pietà’ by Pranet Soy; on the sideboard,terracotta heads by Ofer Lellouche. Three hundred and sixty-five statuettes, in which the artisthas portrayed himself without fail, changing the clothes for thedifferent days of the year. Irony and designer conceit, which,in a spectacular display against a mirrored wall, asserts itself inthe library of an accountancy firm in Milan. Aided by the artisticpassion of proprietor Roberto Spada, the curatorial experienceof Isabella Villafranca/Open Care, and the strict professionalismof Locatelli Partners’ interior project.
A three-way exchangethat has enabled the transformation of an entire floor of oldbanking offices, into a refined and contemporary workspacein which art is a strong yet congenial presence. The starting point,a 1960s building designed by Luigi Caccia Dominioni:brick-coloured ceramic tiles covering the shapes, glass façadeswith unencumbered views of the churches of Saint Eufemia andSan Paolo Converso. “We strived to enhance the architecturallanguage of the site by working on colours and vintage materialsand emphasising the light arriving from the building’s manyoutlooks: the main one over the street, the circular one alongthe internal courtyard’s perimeter, and lastly the one on the backgarden”, explain the architects Massimiliano Locatelli andGiovanna Cornelio. “To enable these glass façades tocommunicate, we replicated the external windows and frameson the inside, creating a long, circular corridor running alongthe floor plan of the building and connecting each room.
It’s enclosed by transparent walls with iron frames and mahoganyskirtings, which also provide access to meeting rooms:when they are empty, one grasps the full size of the rooms deepinside the building; for meetings, an electrical impulse turnsthe windows opaque to ensure privacy”. On the floor alongsidethe corridors and on the white border walls, statues and paintingsalternate, forming a museum collection. Gallerists and collectors,Claudia Gian Ferrari and Giuseppe Iannaccone, are the friendswho instilled in Spada the pleasure of research by sharinginterests and travels from Europe to India. An artistic repositoryfuelling passion.
“Mine are not thoughtful choices. Withinmy budgetary limitations, I buy what I like, without consideringwhere to place the new purchase, or if it will be consistent withthe rest of the collection, much less whether it will turn out to bea good investment”, Roberto Spada confides. “When I visit agallery and discover a new artist or notice a specific sculpture,my reaction is emotional: I fall in love. And I understand thatI wouldn’t like living without that object. At home, I have no freespace left, the basement is in the same predicament, so theoffice... What I really want is to live and work amongst myartworks”. There’s one made of canvas bags, so large it takes upan entire wall and wraps along the ceiling like a curtain,“Abraham’s tent”, Spada jokes, who in that corner oftenwelcomes his guests. Bewildered at first, then won overby the secondary effect of a personal feeling. Which, in the end,translates into a pleasure for everyone.
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